


firstborn

by panache



Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-26
Updated: 2012-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-30 03:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panache/pseuds/panache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isn't it ironic how Loki sets out to destroy his brother's big day and ends up falling to his knees in the depth of Jotunheim, terrified, as the frozen grip of a frost giant spreads ice in Loki's veins, freezing its way up to his heart.</p><p>or: It's not Laufey who is Loki's biological father, but Thor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	firstborn

**Author's Note:**

> melodrama ahoy.
> 
> first posted here: http://norsekink.livejournal.com/6119.html?thread=11177447#t11177447

-

These are some of the things Loki will remember later:

How, when Loki was little and not yet allowed at the table for feasts, Thor would come into Loki’s room after Mother had put him to bed and tickle Loki's feet, his sides, under his chin, before smilingly kissing his forehead and shushing his giggles. 

How sometimes, when asked, Thor would sing Loki's favourite songs until he fell asleep, sing them atrociously but sing them nonetheless, a heavy hand resting warm and comforting on Loki's tummy.

How Thor's bear like protection made Loki feel safe, like nothing could possibly hurt him when his little hand was caught in Thor's big one, even when he made the most horrible faces at Thor’s friends while they were talking.

How familiar and soothing the smell at the crook of Thor's neck was whenever Loki almost fell asleep sitting at banquets and Thor offered to carry him to his room, talking softly to him as he stroked Loki’s hair.

How, when Loki started his training, Thor patched up all Loki's scrapes and bruises, tight-lipped and scowling, forbidden by Father from berating Loki's teachers.

How sometimes Loki would catch Thor’s eyes and Thor wasn’t quick enough to hide a peculiar sadness from his gaze. 

These are some of the things that Loki never again will remember as older brother being fond of his baby brother but a father showing his shackled affection for his child. 

-

Isn't it ironic how Loki sets out to destroy his brother's big day and ends up falling to his knees in the depth of Jotunheim, terrified, as the frozen grip of a frost giant spreads ice in Loki's veins, freezing its way up to his heart. 

He would almost laugh, manic and high, if the pain wasn't overwhelming his senses, tears freezing on his cheeks; his mind scattering and unable to concentrate enough to make use of his magic, to fight, the one dagger in the frost giants belly having done hardly any harm.

Distantly he can hear Sif's fierce battle cry, but it doesn't register until the frost giant is skewered on her spear and falling away from Loki, releasing him. 

Then Sif is talking to him, kneeling and placing her hot hands on Loki's neck, then his face, but Loki can't decipher what she's saying, head a frozen daze. But that she fusses over him is so unlike her; Loki is quite certain he must be dying, that he’ll soon be frozen to the very core.

“Loki!” 

Loki does hear his own name then, but it would be almost impossible not to when Thor roars it in such anguish. 

-

Loki barely stays conscious during the journey back to Asgard, being carried by Volstagg as Thor smashes their way clear in a desperate fury; he thinks he imagines Odin on Sleipnir when he appears, too late, much too late. The pull of the Bifrost is too great for Loki to handle and he blacks out from the cold consuming him.

-

He comes to in the healing room of Asgard. 

There are healers on both side of him and Frigga sits by his feet with a tight grip on his ankle. 

Loki’s curiously not in pain anymore, his mind growing fuzzy and slow but no longer splintering, threatening to crack. He can’t seem to move but at the same time he doesn’t want to, and breathes out a long slow breath, closing his eyes as the healers magic hum over him, through him, soothing him closer and closer to sleep.

There’s a commotion somewhere beyond the bed Loki’s lying on. On some conscious level, Loki recognises it as Thor and Odin arguing, their voices rising until Odin roars, "leave this room!"

"You dare order me away from my own child when he lies wounded," Thor growls.

"Yes! It is your own rash foolishness that has brought him here," Odin says, fast and cold.

Frigga’s grip on Loki’s ankle tightens. "You will both leave if you cannot hold your tongues," Frigga hisses.

Distantly, Loki hears their words, knows there is meaning to the conversation, but it confuses him and he doesn’t fight when the healing sleep finally pulls him under. 

-

It's not until Loki slowly awakens the next day that he tries to make sense of whatever it was he heard just prior to his induced slumber. His growing, confused panic at trying to understand, and not fully being able to yet, brings the healers to his side again and he's soothed into sleep once more. 

When he wakes next, Frigga sits by his bedside, smiling gently at him and Loki finds her presence calming. “Mother,” he whispers, dismissing everything stressful as nothing but a hallucination brought on by his frozen mind. 

“Darling boy,” Frigga says softly, stroking his brow the same way she’s always done, “you gave us a fright.” 

“Mother,” he whispers again, and sighs, content for the moment. 

-

Once he’s out of the healing rooms, hearty and hale again, it won’t stop playing over in his mind. 

He taps his fingers against his palm, a nervous habit, as he walks the hallways, avoiding everyone, avoiding Thor, though he’s heard rumours now of Thor being confined to his rooms, punished, the coronation on a hold. It was what Loki had wanted but he doesn’t spare more than a passing thought to it, his mind occupied with the tangle of lies he seems to have unwittingly uncovered.

'My own child,' is what Loki had heard Thor say. Either Loki had imagined it, had misheard, or...

Loki’s heart is beating fast and hard in his chest as he considers the implication.

Differences in personality happens in families, but they aren't much alike in appearance for being brothers, he and Thor. Loki has always known it, how the only obvious attribute they really share is their height, and that only when Loki came into his manhood. It had been a relief once Loki had caught up to Thor, standing barely an inch shorter than him once Loki too was a man and no longer a child to be held by the hand, coddled and protected.

That Odin and Frigga could have two such dissimilar looking children is so glaringly suspicious now, that Loki finds himself on the way to the laundry rooms without much conscious thought of why at first.

He knows spells that determine paternity, has secretly performed them for people of Asgard who’ve come to him in confidence, bringing with them a gift or a piece of information beneficial to Loki in exchange.

"My prince," says one of the servants once Loki's stepping between the steaming cauldrons of washing. 

"My brother's clothing," he asks, "unwashed," and pulls a coin from nowhere to be deposited in the servant's hand. 

She points him in the right direction. 

-

Loki retires to his rooms with three long strands of Thor’s hair clutched safely in his fingers and his heart in his throat, his forehead pebbling with cold sweat. 

It takes no time at all to gather the right supplies; a shallow stone bowl and a few choice vials from a secret cache. Loki forces himself not to hesitate as he lays Thor’s hair strands in the bowl, immersed in liquid, before yanking three strands of his own hair from his head, tears automatically welling in his eyes from the sting of pain. 

He has his hand out to whisper the words of the spell just as he drops the hair into the bowl. It takes a mere tense moment of spell casting until Loki has his answer.

“No,” Loki whispers, whimpers. Then an almighty rage fills him and he upends the table, screaming until his throat is sore. 

-

He’s just calming down, chest heaving and his cheeks wet, when the door to his rooms open without permission behind him.

“Loki,” Frigga says, voice soft and knowing. The servant must have come to her.

He wants to ask so many questions, demand all the answers, but he can only choke out, “ _why_?”

Frigga comes closer and Loki turns towards her. She looks saddened. 

“You know the way of Asgard. If we didn’t claim you as our own then we would not have known you, you would have been sent away to live your life separately from our family.” 

Of course. Because they could not have a bastard child of Thor’s around, not in name.

“He could have married her,” Loki argues viciously, then pulls up short. It’s the first time he’s thought of the mother who must have birthed him, the mother who is not Frigga, and his breath catches in his throat.

“They were too young, much too young,” Frigga says. “Reckless with youth. Foolish.”

“Who bore me?,” he asks, suddenly anxious to know. He twists his hands in the flowing sleeves of Frigga’s dress. 

“I cannot say,” she says, shaking her head.

“Tell me,” he insists, wanting to shout but his voice breaking instead.  
.  
“I swore never to reveal her identity, Loki. I cannot even if I wished.” 

He pulls away from her, frustrated. “Then leave.”

Frigga is quiet for a moment but then steps up and lays her hands on Loki’s cheeks, brushing away tears and Loki lets her, soothed as he always is by her familiar touch.

“Remember this, Loki. The Allfather and I love you as dearly as if you were our own. You are our child,” Frigga says earnestly, “and we your parents. This will always be so. I have never, and will never, regret the circumstances that brought you into our lives.”

Loki stands quietly for a moment, his fingers finding their way back to her sleeves, feeling small and young again. “Why didn’t you tell me?,” he asks finally, brows drawing together.

“Would you have been happier knowing?” Frigga asks and Loki has no answer for her.

-

“Loki, son of Thor,” Loki tells Sleipnir, brushing a hand down his long, strong neck. It had felt only natural to come to Sleipnir, like he so often does to marvel at how quickly he’s grown, and calm himself down before he does anything rash. “That makes him your grandfather, you realise.” 

Sleipnir whinnies and pushes his head against Loki’s shoulder. 

“Yes,” Loki says, “I suppose it is amusing in a way. It certainly does explain where you get your pig-headedness from.” Sleipnir snorts and pushes on him again, with purpose this time, enough to make Loki wobble and laugh quietly.

Loki splays his hands out. “And some of my temperament issues,” he admits, though it pains him in a confusing way to do so. 

Sleipnir inclines his head after a stubborn moment and lets Loki get back to petting him. “Little one,” Loki murmurs fondly, teasingly, because Sleipnir is not so little any longer, then he realises it’s an endearment he picked up from Thor and frowns. 

Loki gets mere minutes more alone with Sleipnir until he can hear heavy footsteps coming their way. He tenses. For a moment he considers vanishing but decides it’s time for this confrontation and steps around Sleipnir, using him cowardly as a shield.

Thor stops uncertainly in the opening to the stall, looking wary and sad, dressed down to his tunic and breeches. A part of his punishment, most likely, to not be allowed his regalia. Loki avoids his gaze and smoothes his hand down Sleipnir’s side. “Have you come to stare at your bastard son,” he says as loftily as he can manage, but it still hurts to say it. 

“Loki,” Thor says, stepping inside, “don’t speak like that.”

“Why not, that’s what I am, isn’t it,” he bites out, “the illegitimate child you didn’t claim as your own.”

Thor lays his hands on Sleipnir, on the other side from Loki. “I could not.”

“Could not, can not,” Loki mimics in frustration, “I’ve heard nothing else.”

Thor walks around Sleipnir and Loki glares at him for not kicking Thor, but Sleipnir just twitches his ears and stares right back. 

Thor tries to lay a hand on Loki’s shoulder but Loki shrugs him off. He ignores the stab of guilt at Thor’s hurt expression.

“The choice was one between sending you away or keeping you near, but that was hardly a choice at all,” Thor says, hoarse with feeling. “How could I be parted from you? I could not acknowledge you as my child but I could see you grow up and be near you, be family if only as a brother.” 

“And what of my mother. Did she not want me?” Loki asks, clenching his jaw against insistent tears.

Thor looks away from Loki then, ashamed and sorrowed. “Her family was not told for they would have forsaken her. She never had the possibility to care for you,” Thor says, fisting his hands. He looks back at Loki. “But do not ever think she did not want you.”

“Then tell me her name,” Loki demands, knowing even before Thor speaks that he won’t get an answer.

Thor shakes his head, “I can not-”

Loki yells his frustration, throwing a burst of magic against the wall of the stall.

Instantly, Thor grabs him by the arms from behind, restrains him, and Loki can’t shake him off. “I will speak to her, Loki. I will,” Thor entreats, trying to calm him.

“If she does not come forward on her own, I will find her,” Loki promises, threatens.

“Yes,” Thor agrees. 

They stand in silence for a moment. Thor releases his grip on Loki slowly but Loki stays with his back turned on him. 

“I named you,” Thor says eventually, quiet like he almost never is but with the underlying passion of one who finally gets to speak of things they’ve not wanted to keep quiet about. “And on the day of your birth I held you for as long as they would let me and I _loved_ you. Loki, you are more precious to me than all of Yggdrasil.”

Loki takes a deep breath and wipes a hand angrily over his wet eyes. “And one day you will marry and your wife will bear you legitimate offspring and all that will change.”

“No,” Thor growls, coming around him to cup Loki’s face with his broad hands, “because one day I will be king and no longer fettered by Father’s demands; one day I will be king and I will finally be able to claim you as my own, to name you my heir.” 

Loki stares at him, shocked and yet not somehow. “Grand words indeed,” he says quietly. Had this then been part of Thor’s hurry to take the throne. 

“I am not one for empty promises, Loki, you know that.”

“Even if I had never found out?”

Thor releases Loki’s face to grip his shoulders instead. “ _Yes_. Do you not see that I long for the day I can acknowledge you?” Then he looks unsure. “Unless you do not wish me to.”

Does he wish him to? Loki feels suddenly as uncertain as Thor looks. He’d be proclaimed heir to the throne, the first son of Thor like he rightfully is, but also bastard child. Would Asgard accept him? Though if they would not then Loki would gladly be named heir just to spite them. But he’s never wanted the responsibilities that comes with taking the throne, even if that possibility would be far, far in the future with Thor young still. 

“You need not decide yet,” Thor rushes to say, scared perhaps at what he sees in Loki’s face. “We can discuss it at a later time,” he adds.

“Yes, that might be best,” Loki says, overwhelmed. It’s a lot to take into consideration and he’s not in the right state of mind to do so at present, still reeling from finding out he isn’t who he’s believed to be all his life.

Thor nods, then stares at Loki before he with jerky motions, like he can’t quite restrain himself any longer, pulls him into an embrace, immediately tucks Loki against him like he hasn’t done since Loki left boyhood. 

Exhausted suddenly, Loki lets him, even snags his fingers in the back of Thor’s tunic. Thor’s neck still smells just as comforting, as safe, as when Loki was a child. His father, Loki thinks in something like relenting acceptance, hysteria lurking around the fringes.

Thor sighs, a happy, tremulous sound, and tightens his arms around Loki. “Little one,” he murmurs.

A wet, sad laugh forces its way out of Loki at that. He presses his face against Thor’s neck then pulls away, turning his back on Thor. “If you don’t mind, I’d like some time alone now. It’s a lot to digest as I’m sure you can understand.”

“Yes, of course.” Thor rests a hand on Loki’s shoulder, then kisses the back of his head. “...I will speak to her,” he promises and waits for Loki’s nod before he moves away, clapping Sleipnir’s neck on his way out.

“Who do you think my mother is,” Loki asks Sleipnir, watching the doorway blankly after Thor’s left. “Some common servant, probably. Wouldn’t that be a fine jest. Not only a bastard but the bastard of some pretty and easily tumbled kitchen maid,” he says bitterly, but with not much heat to it. It’s not like his reproductive history is spotless. 

Case in point - Sleipnir snorts, scrapes some of his hooves against the floor, and Loki shakes himself out of his wondering state.

“Yes, yes,” Loki says to Sleipnir, who’s never had much patience with Loki’s dramatics, “don’t look at me like that.” 

He sighs, trying to find the calm he’d had before Thor appeared, then summons a brush. “Let’s see to your mane, shall we,” because if he and Sleipnir have one thing in common it’s their vanity, and the stable boys just don’t handle Sleipnir’s mane to either of their approval.

“It could be worse, I suppose, than finding out I am the illegitimate child to the one I’ve always known as my brother,” Loki says and starts brushing slowly. 

At Sleipnir’s enquiring whinny Loki continues with a sharp smile, “I could have been a frost giant foundling.”

-


End file.
